Graffiti attackers to appear in court

Seven men are due to appear in court accused of vandalising 22 London Midland trains causing over £6,000 worth of damage.

They are suspected of committing over 140 offences on trains in both the UK and Europe.

Their recognisable graffiti ‘tagging’ caused damage to the exterior of London Midland trains stabled at Bletchley, Northampton, Coventry, Soho and Tyseley.

In many cases, the whole of the train was covered in multi-coloured spray paint.

Neil Bamford, London Midland’s asset maintenance director, said: “It’s great news that British Transport Police have made these arrests.

“The time and money that goes into cleaning the units after this kind of damage is huge and places additional pressure on our depot based colleagues who work really hard to keep our trains looking clean and tidy.

“We are now working closely with British Transport Police to calculate the overall cost of the damage so we can aim to recover this through the court process.

“On a number of instances, the level of damage caused was so severe that we had to take trains out of service so they could undergo intensive cleaning. Whilst we can calculate the time and cost taken to clean all the vandalised trains, we cannot make up for the inconvenience this causes to our passengers”.